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Online Travel News

These articles delve into the latest trends, technologies, and strategies that are shaping the online booking landscape, ensuring that industry insiders stay informed and prepared for change. These stories cover essential topics such as the development of innovative booking platforms, the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in personalizing travel options, and the impact of mobile technology on customer behavior. Additionally, the news stories highlight the growing importance of user-generated content and reviews in shaping consumer decisions, and the role of social media in the online travel booking ecosystem. Skift’s stories examine the competitive landscape and offer insights into the successes and challenges faced by major online travel agencies (OTAs), startups, and traditional travel companies transitioning to the digital space.

Airlines

Brand measurement service Heardable looks at airlines, should probably measure again

Heardable's $999 report on airlines points to Delta and United as having the best "digital experience," a ranking sure to raise eyebrows among consumers and rivals such as Virgin America.

Hotels

Room 77 to remain in the cloud after Amazon outage

Travel companies should fine-tune their cloud strategies after an Amazon Web Services outage took down Room 77, Pinterest, Instagram and Netflix. Given the cost-savings and efficiencies of cloud computing, travel companies won't be abandoning such services -- nor should they -- any time soon.

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Online Travel

Maps are getting seriously sexy: Amazon enters the game with an acquisition

The battle for local intelligence has broken into open warfare with the three biggest digital consumer brands stockpiling massive mapping weapons to. Use against one another.

Media and PR

Why social travel sites don’t really work

The short answer is, "no," it doesn't work. Both for the reasons clearly laid out in Patokallio's article and because there's also already a massively successful social site that helps users get travel recommendations from friends. It's called Facebook.

Media and PR

One-time local recommendation leader CitySearch gets a facelift for its 16th birthday

Despite a big head start, CitySearch got whacked by Yelp. Now it can't decide if it wants to be Yelp, Foursquare, Groupon, or something else that's more popular.

Online Travel

Hotels and travel providers weigh the benefits of daily deal sites

U.S. hotels can look to Australia for examples of properties that have worked with flash sites and still maintained a certain integrity of their rates.

Online Travel

Loyalty-card startups give merchants a reason to ignore Groupon

The startups make the difference between flash sale sites and loyalty programs clear: One's just about the deal, the other's about building a loyal clientele.

Online Travel

Is Hipmunk the best travel booking website on the planet?

Hipmunk is innovative, for sure, but is it more than a few features and does it have enough staying power to get its brand known beyond Silicon Valley?

Online Travel

KwikChex rates review sites through its own lens

KwikCheck, which represents hotels, hates unverified hotel reviews so TripAdvisor is near the bottom of the list. TripAdvisor-owned Flipkey, which publishes only verified reviews about vacation rentals, is a favorite. In publishing its list, where is KwikChex's transparency about filing complaints with UK regulatory authorities against at least two of the companies in its ranking?

Online Travel

Social travel startups eat your heart out: “Facebook bragging” boosts Aussie tourism

Hence our general skepticism of specialized social travel startups.